roduct of human passion, which by its nature disdains common
boundaries; and this, in painting, is especially the province of
Colour, which may be said to be the poetical language of art, and
admits differences of the same kind as exist between common speech and
poetical and figurative diction.

The painter as well as poet may colour somewhat highly,

"And breathe a browner horror o'er the woods."

Critics too often write of art as if it had only to do with what
actually exists; whereas it is given to it as to poetry "to make," to
create--all that is required is a certain connexion with the real,
sometimes exceedingly slight, which shall be sufficiently delusive
for present purpose. The agile mind can pass over a deep and
formidable chasm upon a slender thread; and when over, is too much
occupied in the new region to turn back and measure the means of
passage. We suspect our author's view of nature is too limited.

Upon _"a good choice of subject"_ are some good remarks. Disgusting
subjects are justly condemned. "It is evident that an animal, flayed
or embowelled, entrails, meat raw or mangled, blood, excrements,
death's-heads, carcasses, and similar objects, if they strike upon the
view too much, will be as disgusting in a picture as they are in
nature; and that grimaces, hideous or monstrous deformities, whether
moral or physical, will be as shocking in the one as the other. Events
which are sufficiently unnatural, barbarous, and cruel, to shake
violently the soul, and cause it to tremble with insurmountable
horror, create an agitation too frightful for it to resist, much less
to be pleased with. Subjects of so bad a choice, (which Horace
severely prohibits from being introduced upon the scene,) do little
honour to the painter. They become even more insupportable in
proportion as they approach nearer to reality by the perfection of
their execution." The translator thinks his "author has stated this
too broadly;" and instances, as pictures of this kind to be admired
for their truth, _The Lesson of Anatomy_, by Rembrandt; _Prometheus
Devoured by the Vulture_, by Salvator Rosa; _Raising of Lazarus_, by
Sebastian del Piombo. Of the two first subjects, we think they are to
be condemned, if, in the _Prometheus_, the enduring mind of Prometheus
be not the subject. But surely the grand picture of Piombo, though it
is all awful, has in it nothing disgusting, or that comes within the
condemned list. The question to be a